Lijit Ad Wijit

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

I wanted to share the outstanding work at this website to help further educate
others about the "Choking Game". Sadly a child's life was lost, another angel in heaven, read this post via the website by founder and big sister KeriGlenn, talking about the night her little brother died. Kudo's to your work "Wild Farm Kids"

The Game That Could Win Your Life.
November 21st 2011, this day was my little sisters 7th
birthday and the day that has forever changed my life. My family had a
small birthday party planned for my sister at my grandparents. The
basketball games I was at coaching my cheerleaders went into overtime,
so I didn’t get done until about 9:15 that night. I hurried to my
grandparents to have cake and ice cream with them, but by the time I got
there, they were getting ready to leave. I said hi and bye to all my
siblings, then headed back to campus.
I no more than got in the parking lot and my mom called me screaming
so loud that I couldn’t understand anything she was saying. I then got
her to talk slower and she said the most heart breaking words I have
ever heard, “Joshua is dead!” I dropped my phone and burst into tears, I
couldn’t breathe, and I instantly turned back around and sped home. I
got about a half mile out of town and got pulled over for speeding. I
was a wreck. I told the cop what was going on and he didn’t believe me,
so he had to call dispatch to see that I was telling the truth.
By the time I got close to my house I could see a light show from all
the cop cars that were surrounding my parent’s home. I couldn’t get
into my driveway so I drove through my neighbor’s yard to get to my
parents. The look on my dad’s face, made me know this was real. My mom
was crying, talking like she was talking to herself, but out loud. She
said, “His eyes were lifeless and glazed, his skin was blue, all I
wanted to do was hold him but they wouldn’t let me.” I tried talking to
her but all she could say was, “They told me to prepare for the worst,
but I know he’s already gone.”
The drive to the hospital was the longest drive of my life. Once we
got there they wouldn’t let me in his room. So many EMT’s and ME’s were
in the room working on him. I just wanted to go in there with him. Once
they let me in, I held his hand, kissed his cheek, tried closing his
eyes and talking to him. I knew he was gone, but my mind wouldn’t let me
accept it.
We were fielding questions, going through all of his things, and
trying to find peace of knowing what really happened and started the
funeral planning process. I took on the “big sister” role, and helped
plan his visitation and funeral. I never thought I would be able to do
this, but I did and it was the most rewarding thing I have ever done. I
did it because I knew my parents needed the help. There were so many
people there; it was completely amazing to see all the love and support
we got from everyone.
Joshua was 13 years old, a 7th grader who was on the A
honor roll, loved football, wrestling, drawing, singing, outdoors, 4-H
and everything else a little boy loves. He had the biggest heart and a
contagious smile that could light up a room. A few days after he died we
found out the cause of his death, it was from “the choking game”. This
is something that none of our family knew he was doing, but when we were
told about it and what it entails, we found that the warning signs were
all over. They included things like; headaches, itchy eyes, off sleep
patterns, marks on his bunk bed, robe ties in his room, and the fact
that he was a 13 year old adventurous boy.
Since this happened I have been so invested in the “choking game”. I
have found that it is more common than people think. It isn’t something
that people really admit to or talk about, but it is going on
everywhere, probably even in your neighborhood. When someone
participates in this, they are cutting the oxygen supply from their
brain, for a short term high, which as a result kills brain cells and
can be fatal. This isn’t a game and if people are doing it, I hope that
this is a wakeup call to them to stop. The affects of this not only
hurts yourself, but also everyone that loves and cares about you.
KeriGlennhttp://wildfarmkids.com/

Thursday, June 21, 2012

As promised I will attempt to dig deeper into those 10 teen health dangers and try to understand them better.
I was hoping that number 1 would not be so true, but I was wrong, kids are biting and sucking each others blood. Good grief what a crazy phase, kids are actually biting and sucking the blood from another person. What are they thinking, infections, serious injuries, hepatitis, Hiv, death are the possible consequences of such a stupid game.

via The Parent Dish and MSNBC, I found some info here:
Inspired by the "Twilight" series and heartthrob vampire Edward Cullen's
chilly charms, teens are taking their love nips a little too far, MSNBC reports, biting each other -- hard -- and then licking the blood.

Bizarre teen behavior has horrified parents for generations, but health
officials and other experts are warning this vampire-inspired Count
Dracula fad could have serious consequences.

And many teens are getting their blood-sucking fix on the Internet,
Avitzur says, noting that sessions spent trolling vampire-related teen
websites are on the rise. Groups such as "I drink blood," a category at experienceproject.com, and "I want to be a vampire" at the site 43things.com, are filled with apparent posts from young people with a yearning for hemoglobin.

"Having that thick, warm copper-tasting blood in my mouth is the best
thing I can think of!" writes a teenager identified as "GothicGirl10" on
MSNBC. "Sometimes my boyfriend lets me feed off him. I let him feed off
me as well."

Such talk alarms medical experts, who warn about the dangers of
blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis and HIV, as well as the risk of
nasty infections. Typically, 10-15 percent of human bite wounds become
infected, MSNBC reports.

"If you break the skin, your mouth is pretty dirty," Dr. Thomas Abshire,
a pediatric blood and cancer specialist and spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics, tells MSNBC. "The human mouth flora is dirtier than a dog or cat's."

Also concerning is the fact that this biting is often done to brand another person, experts say.

"If you think about it, there is such glamorization in those teen
vampire movies, they make it seem so sexy and appealing and intriguing,"
Avitzur says. "It's all mixed up with passion."

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Over the next few weeks we are going to focus on some of the teen health dangers
that are prevalent now and maybe a few more totally absurd ones you might never think about.
If you search the internet you will find many articles on different webpages that list these dangers, make sure you are reading credible information.
This list of 10 trends comes from the social media doctor at KevinMD.com a great site for health information that you can use, one of my favorite sites.

Here’s a roundup of 10 troublesome trends, some old and some new, that your teen may be exposed to this summer and school year :

1. Biting and cutting and sucking blood.
Yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, there’s a vampire movement afoot
thanks to the glamorous portrayal of teen vampires on the Twilight
series and The Vampire Diaries and the popularity of HBO’s True Blood.
Besides the serious bacterial dangers of human bites, it can be a mode
of HIV transmission that’s not covered in most sex ed classes.2. Circle lenses/decorative contact lenses.
A look made popular by Lady Gaga and YouTube, circle lenses create a
big doe-eyed appearance and have become popular among teenage girls.
Illegal to sell without a prescription, but easily bought online,
doctors are concerned about risks of blinding infections and damage to
the cornea.3. ADHD prescription drug abuse. The
same drugs being used to treat attention deficit disorder are being
freely shared by some teens on college campuses and high schools to give
them an edge at preparing for exams. Not only is the stigma gone, but
kids who have the prescriptions are the go-to favorites during finals.
If your child uses ADHD drugs, warn him or her against sharing. If your
child doesn’t, make it clear that these are serious medications with
side effects, not study aids.4. Tobacco escalation products.
Many teens are convinced that, unlike cigarettes, smoking a hookah or
using chewing tobacco is not harmful. In fact, hookahs do use tobacco
(referred to as Massel) which comes in a wide variety of
flavors—including apple, strawberry, and coconut—intended to create a
“graduation strategy” so that kids get hooked by starting them with
milder tasting, more flavored substances. This trick is also used with a
product called “Snus”, a non-chew, no-spit oral tobacco that’s also
available in variety of sweet and fruity flavors. Also increasingly
popular with teens, using Snus lets them stay under the radar at school
and still get their nicotine fix, because it’s stuffed between the lip
and the gum. Make sure your teens know that these products have their
own dangers, as well as leading to nicotine addiction.5. Tanorexia/Tanning salons.
Even though exposure to tanning beds before the age of 30 increases a
person’s risk of developing melanoma by 75 percent, this real danger is
dampened by television shows that depict it as trendy and fashionable.
One study of university students found that more than 90 percent of
tanning-bed users know about the risks of premature aging and skin
cancer but continue to tan because they think it looks good.6. Tattoos.
Tattoos have become extremely popular among teens. Although most states
have laws prohibiting minors from getting them, they are poorly
enforced. Recent data suggest that more than one-third of adults in the
U.S. under the age of 35 now sport at least one tattoo. Outbreaks of
community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
skin infections among tattoo recipients have been related to sloppy
infection control practices. And tattoos are estimated to account for
more than twice as many hepatitis C infections as injection drug use.
Other infections, including HIV, can also be contracted through
tattooing. If your kids insist on tattoos, make sure that they go to a
licensed practitioner.7. Piercings. Besides
traditional ear piercings which carry the standards risks of infection,
allergic reactions to nickel, and scar formation, kids are piercing
other parts of their bodies, including their nose, naval region, lips,
eyebrows and tongues, as well as areas hidden from parents, such as the
nipples and genitals. Bacterial infections are not uncommon as are risks
of hepatitis, tuberculosis, HIV and tetanus. Deformity and scarring can
be permanent. Make sure your kids are aware that needles wielded by
anyone but a health professional or certified technician can be lethal
weapons.8. Tech use at night. Do you know what
your kids are doing in their bedrooms at night? It’s likely they’re
texting their friends, chatting on Facebook, or playing video games. The
high-tech bedrooms of many teenagers, are anything but dark and quiet.
They often go to sleep listening to their iPods, and exchange text
messages late into the night. In fact, this seems to be typical teenage
behavior. No wonder they’re tired in school. Encourage your child to
make it a habit to completely unplug well before bedtime.9. Texting while driving.
There have been reports of teens getting into serious car accidents
texting while driving because they keep their hands and eyes on their
cell phone keys, rather than the steering wheel. The practice is
widespread and getting worse. According to a 2010 survey by AAA and
Seventeen Magazine, 86 percent of drivers, age 16-19 admit to risky
driving habits, up 25% from a 2008 survey. And those who texted, sent,
on average, 23 text messages while driving in the past month. Sixty
percent of teens say they drive while talking on their cell phones, up
nine percent from a 2008 survey. Make sure your teen drivers have
headsets in the car so they can take needed calls and keep their hands
on the wheel.10. Noise exposure. According to
published research, about 12.5 percent of American children between the
age of 6 and 19 have measurable noise induced hearing loss in one or
both ears. Exposure to harmful sounds can injure the delicate hair cells
in the inner ear. We have a fixed number of cochlear hair cells and
they don’t regenerate, so it’s important to prevent damage in the first
place to reduce the need for a hearing aid later in life. To protect
their hearing, they should turn down the volume from headsets,
televisions and car radios, and set the top volume level on their MP3
player to a safe level.Orly Avitzur is medical adviser at Consumer Reports and blogs at the Consumer Reports Health Blog.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Part 2
Today we look into the nasty dangerous game of drinking hand sanitizer to get high!
Yes, kids and teens are actually doing this, and landing their butts in the ER and ICU's intoxicated and barely breathing.
Alcohol is a drug or specifically the drug/chemical ethanol is a central nervous system depressant, thus slowing down the respiratory drive of the drinker, to much and you can stop breathing.
The following article from CBS News shows incidents and possible solutions.

(CBS News) Would you drink hand sanitizer? The idea may sound
repulsive to most people, but California doctors are warning parents of
what may be a fast-growing dangerous trend after six local teenagers
were hospitalized in separate incidents with alcohol poisoning from
drinking the soapy stuff.Popular "cinnamon challenge" has potential to be deadly Dangerous "games" that may harm kids and teensThe Los Angeles Times
reported some of the teenagers used salt to separate the alcohol from
the sanitizer using instructions found online. If a liquid hand
sanitizer contains 62 percent ethyl alcohol, that means a "drink" can be
as high as 120 proof, whereas a shot of hard liquor such as whiskey or
vodka is typically 80 proof.

"All it takes is just a few
swallows and you have a drunk teenager," Dr. Cyrus Rangan, director of
the toxicology bureau for the county public health department and a
medical toxicology consultant for Children's Hospital Los Angeles, told
the Los Angeles Times. "There is no question that it is dangerous."
Teens
who presented to the emergency room had symptoms such as slurred speech
and a burning sensation in the stomach. Some teens were so drunk they
needed to be monitored in the emergency room.
Rangan said
although there have been only a handful of cases, the practice could
become a nationwide problem since hand sanitizers are cheap and easily
available, and teens can easily look up how to extract alcohol from a
bottle. KTLA in Los Angeles reports there were no such cases last year, and the recent spate of cases in recent weeks is surprising.
"It is kind of scary that they go to that extent to get a shot of essentially hard liquor," Rangan said.
A
spokesperson for the Los Angeles Department of Health told HealthPop
there was no official city-wide warning or statement at this time.
Dr.
Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital
in New York City, said he has taken care of some teens out who had
ingested hand sanitizers at school as a "dare," only to come to the ER
drunk with dizziness, nausea and vomiting.
"They denied drinking
any 'alcohol', had no smell of alcohol on their breath, but when their
blood alcohol was quite elevated, they later admitted to drinking the
hand sanitizer," Glatter told HealthPop.
Glatter said it's
essential that warning labels be placed on hand sanitizers to educate
parents and the public of potential risks.
"Officials in
institutions where these products are available - including hospitals,
schools, offices, heath clubs, and day care centers - have a duty to
inform people about the alcohol content in these products, and
subsequent dangers if ingested," he told HealthPop.
Doctors told
the L.A. Times that parents should purchase foam hand sanitizers since
they're harder to extract alcohol from compared with gel-based products,
and they should monitor hand sanitizer bottles around the house as if
they are liquor or medicine bottles.
"Over the years, they have
ingested all sorts of things," Helen Arbogast, injury prevention
coordinator in the trauma program at Children's Hospital Los Angeles,
told the Times. "Cough syrup had reached a very sexy point where young
people were using it.... We want to be sure this doesn't take on the
same trend."
The industry trade organization, the American Cleaning Institute, responded to the recent reports.
"One
case of product misuse - intentional or otherwise - is always one too
many," Nancy Bock, vice president of education at the American Cleaning
Institute said in an emailed statement. "But let's not lose sight of the
fact that millions of people are not abusing these products and do
responsibly use them as needed."

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

They are everywhere, on the wall, in the bathroom, in the diaper bag, at the grocery store. Hand sanitizers have become common place in our society today. Would you ever think about drinking them? WHAT! Drinking it! Yuck that has got to be nasty, right?
Kids are drinking hand sanitizer to get high, since the alcohol content is at least 67%, some higher, and it is very readily accessible to them.
Hand sanitizers, once only found among true germophobes and in
hospitals, have become ubiquitous. They’re present at the supermarket,
the gym, in daycare centers, and you probably have at least one bottle
rolling around in your car or in the bottom of your purse or backpack.
During the flu epidemic scare of 2010/2011, hand sanitizer use jumped
dramatically as healthcare professionals warned us that the only way to
keep from getting deathly ill was to strip our hands of the viral
microbes that constantly hitch rides on them. When scientists told us
potentially deadly bacteria are all over virtually everything we touch,
we became paranoid about germs. Hand sanitizers seem like an easy way to
mitigate the risk of…well…being a resident of Earth.
But hand sanitizers, like most things in life, have a dark side. Yes,
it’s important to practice good hygiene, especially on the hands, if
you want to stay healthy. But a hand sanitizer isn’t always the best way
to do so, especially if you aren’t using it right. Here are 5 reasons
why you might want to consider using it less.1. Your skin needs its oils
Most hand sanitizers contain a high concentration of alcohol, which removes the layer of natural oils from your skin.
However, the skin on your hands is relatively thin and delicate, and
needs those oils to stay healthy. The more you use hand sanitizer, the
more moisture you strip from your skin, leaving it red, raw, chapped,
and eventually bleeding. And, without proper moisture, your hands—one of
the first areas to show aging—will also look much older, much sooner.2. Your immune system needs its exercise
Like body builders who maintain their muscled physiques by working
them at the gym every day, our immune systems stay strong by constantly
doing battle against unfamiliar microbes. When we remove bacteria and
other microbes from our lives, it can weaken our immune systems.
This is especially true for babies and young children. Our worry that
exposure will hurt them actually deprives them of developing a hearty
immune system, which could make them sicker down the road.
We don’t suggest that you should purposely expose your children to
harmful bacteria, but too much caution the other way can backfire.3. They don’t replace soap and water
The Food and Drug Administration recommends that hand sanitizers not be used in place of soap and water, but as a backup.
Dirt, grime, blood, and other body fluids present on the hands can
block the effective ingredient in hand sanitizers. When the hands are
visibly dirty, soap and water must be used to wash them first. Plus, studies indicate
that, in real life on actual human hands (as opposed to controlled
surfaces used by manufacturers to test their 99.9 percent kill claims),
washing with soap and water does a better job of cleaning the hands.
In fact, one researcher at Perdue University claims that, by
stripping the oils from our hands that prevent bacteria present in the
body from coming to the surface, using hand sanitizer can actually increase the presence of bacteria on the hands in a way that soap and water washing doesn’t.4. False sense of security
Manufacturer’s claims that hand sanitizers kill 99.9% of bacteria
combined with not using them properly can lead us into a false sense of
security about our exposure to harmful substances. Alcohol-based
sanitizers, for example, have been shown to be ineffective against rabies and norovirus. Hand sanitizers containing less than 60% alcohol—and they are
out there—are just plain ineffective. And if you don’t use enough to
cover your entire hands and stay wet for at least 15 seconds, you might
as well have not used it at all.5. Toxins in your system
Many hand sanitizers claim to be antibacterial, which means they
contain a chemical called triclosan, a hormone disrupter. In a 2003-2004
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,
three-quarters of participants had concentrations of triclosan in their
urine. While not all sanitizers contain triclosan, most do contain
parabens, propylene glycol, and synthetic fragrances, all substances
known to affect the systems and organs in the body. Those chemicals
aren’t particularly good to add to the ecosystem, either.
Despite its dark side, hand sanitizer can be an important and useful
tool in fighting disease. Used properly, and only when absolutely
necessary when lacking hand-washing facilities, it can help you stay
healthy. But if you are a too frequent user, you may be doing yourself
and your family more harm than good.